


nachtrauern

by bytheinco_nstantmoon



Series: auflösungen von unsicherheit [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: I love him, M/M, Percy is depressed, Suicide Attempt, be careful with this fragile boy, graphic description of self harm/suicide, i really love percys character and he deserves good things but first i have to dig into the bad shit, ik this is sad but bear with me, they cry at one point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 17:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17248211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bytheinco_nstantmoon/pseuds/bytheinco_nstantmoon
Summary: He doesn't want to think about it.-Percy has things to hide.





	nachtrauern

In his mind, it starts when it happened. Logically, he knows this is not the case- has never been, will never be, but he thinks he might make an exception to his steadfast logic this time. He doesn’t want to dwell on the years before it, the thoughts of _not good enough_ and _not worthy_ that soaked his childhood. He remembers clinging to his pillow and crying for hours and hours through the night- he couldn’t tell anyone. He couldn’t trust that they would care.  
He can’t dwell on that. So instead, if it perchance crosses his mind, he thinks on the event itself; oftentimes he is bitter toward it, for various reasons. For months afterward, he bemoaned that it didn’t work; then, that none of his family ever noticed, or perhaps just never cared; most recently, he is bitter at himself, that the thought had ever crossed his mind.

-

_It wasn’t even raining. He felt it should be raining, as dreary as he was, but he supposed that it was alright; the world didn’t revolve around him. (He knows that, for heaven’s sake, no matter what his brothers say.) Downstairs, they’re laughing- he’d excused himself after dinner, and they’d let him go with a jab on how they wouldn’t want him ruining the fun anyway._

_And, yes, he knows it’s a joke. Everything’s a joke to them, isn’t it? But he’s no longer a child, no longer naive. He’s perfectly aware that they don’t enjoy his company. Hell, even he doesn’t enjoy his company._

_It’s a perfectly clear, wonderful summer night, and he curls into himself against the wall, yanking at copper curls with his fingers and muttering to himself; muttering curses, muttering reasons why and reasons why not-_

-

He will never be the son his parents ache for him to be. He is still so, so aware of that, but he no longer wishes to change it. He is content to live with it, live with the ache, content to despise himself on his own and toil in his own way to reverse all his mistakes.  
The self hatred is a kind of motivation to him now. It no longer drives him to claw at his hair and bash his head into the wall and split his skin apart; it keeps him line, it reminds him that he wants to be- not a brother, because he will never be their brother, he knows that now- a friend, an ally of a kind, to support them from the corner he’s inhabited all his life. They would hate to see the marks on his arms. They’re too kind-hearted. So he keeps them covered, and no one questions him on his habit of wearing sweaters- his father did once, and he spouted some bullshit lie on professionalism that he came up with on the spot. It’s sort of sad of easily Arthur accepted it.

-

_He breathes out hard, swallows hard, and unfurls his fingers from his hair. Where is his wand-_

_No. Foolish boy, he left it downstairs. Goddammit._

_He has a knife in here somewhere, a pocket knife he nicked from the shed when he was a kid. He breathes out again and stands. In his dresser, maybe? He pulls open the top drawer to rifle through until he uncovers it- it’s tiny, really, just a trinket his father picked up god-knows-where, but when he flicks it open, it’s sharp, and that’s what matters._

-

He still has nightmares, still thrashes and subconsciously gnaws on his hands to keep from screaming, but he’s fine. His mind will go blank sometimes, aching to ache, and he’ll have to dig out a bottle of who-even-knows in order to keep his wits somewhat about him, but he’s alright. Sometimes his breathing will become ragged and his thoughts will go so fast that he doesn’t know what he’s thinking and his fingernails will rip at his skin, but he’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with him.

There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s fine. He has to be, because if he’s not fine, if he’s not confident and arrogant and sure-footed, then what is he? He’s just Percy. He uses the facade so that he isn’t that- he doesn’t want to be Percy. He couldn’t stand to be Percy.

-

_He digs it into his skin and hisses, almost shrieks, but instead he grits his teeth and drags it through his arm, yanks it all the way up to his elbow, tearing through his skin and spilling blood. He tries to do the same on his right arm, but his injured hand isn’t entirely obedient after the damage that he’s done it, and the cut only makes it halfway up his forearm. He drops the knife and stumbles back against the wall, dropping to the floor. He can hear footsteps passing his door- Ron, he’s pretty sure, on his way up to bed. He leans his head back against the wall and breathes out a long, slow breath._

_He’d said he was going up to bed, didn’t he? He struggled to pull himself to his feet, staggering across the room and collapsing on top of his sheets. He closed his eyes._

_“You’re welcome, I guess,” he mutters._

-

He hates to look at the scars, hates to see how uneven they are. They could be even- they would have been the same, if he’d been just a little stronger, been able to handle a little more pain- he doesn’t know why it bothers him so much. But it stings. He keeps his arms covered more for his own sake than anyone else’s.

Sometimes, he debates grabbing a knife and extending the second scar so that it’ll match. But that’s idiotic. He promised Oliver he wouldn’t; he can’t break a promise to Oliver.

-

_He wakes up the next morning and his arms are healed over and he knows it’s accidental magic, like when he was a kid._

_He feels numb._

_He goes downstairs with a sweater on and he doesn’t smile and nobody notices a thing because he’s_ Percy _for God’s sake, he doesn’t smile anyway._

_But someone does notice, eventually, and he’ll never be able to divulge that story to anyone because the trouble he’d be in- but yes, Oliver finds out eventually, sometime during their sixth year after the first game, sometime between the two of them alone in the stairwell and the two of them alone in the empty practice room offside the Quidditch pitch. Percy hadn’t let Oliver near him that year, hadn’t let Oliver touch him at all, not even just an arm around the shoulders or a grip of the wrist, and Oliver was worried, was asking him what was wrong, and well-_

_Well, he had to shut up somehow. But that led to everything being entirely too clear._

_Somehow, Percy is glad that Oliver found out, because he’d just taken Percy’s wrists in his hands and looked him in the eyes and said he loved him. (He’s fairly certain one of them cried, or both, but he doesn’t know which and it doesn’t matter anyhow.)_

_“Promise me, Perce- please, please promise me.”_

_“I promise, Ollie. I’m sorry, I promise.”_

_-_

He’s alive, he thinks, and he thinks he doesn’t want to be, but there’s a war on the horizon now, and it’s not his life that matters anymore. It’s everyone he cares about, and perhaps it’s worth being alive just so that he has his life to give again for them. 


End file.
